New tricks?

Old dog new tricks? Yes, I'm in my mid 40s, but sometimes I do feel like an old dog when it comes to things like learning new things about technology and social media. As I've gotten more involved in OMF Japan's mobilisation drive, I've found my boundaries of what's comfortable pushed again and again.

First, about 12 months ago it was helping in the redesign of the OMF Japan website (and talking about that to our leaders when I really didn't know what I was talking about) and picking up an Instagram account. Then editing the whole website. After that came learning how to blog on wordpress.com (something I'd tried in the past and given up as too complicated). Setting up guidelines for a new blog was the easy part!

Then I went to the social media for mobilisation workshop in Manila last month and discovered a whole 'nother world. I've been doing social media for years, but now it has become a more integral part of my work. I'm doing it not just in my own name, but for OMF Japan.

I've been working with another much younger colleague, who lives way north of here, to coordinate our FB and Instagram pages, that's taken some figuring out too! Even today, trying to figure out why she couldn't see the photos I shared on the Google calendar that I started for coordinating content.

I'm also trying to figure out the best way to convert an inDesign file of our 31 Days of Prayer into a sharable electronic document. Looking at Blurb.com just before lunchtime today drove me to the edge of what my feeble brain could manage. I'll come back to it later.

How my job has changed over the last few months can be seen somewhat by peeking at my iPhone homescreen which now includes these apps:

The first, Workplace, is a Facebook app designed for use for in the workplace. It's been very useful for our remote team. I've found it wonderful to easily get advice (especially technical advice) from others who know a lot more about these things than I.

Flipboard is a fun app. A bit like an RSS feed, except that you don't add blogs or anything else to it, just the topics you're interested in and it scouts around for you, looking for articles on the topics you're interested in. Helpful for me as I administer the OMF Japan FB page and am on the lookout for Japan-related stories to add to the mix.

Repost is an app that allows me to repost Instagram posts. I haven't used it much and have found it a little cumbersome so far, but I'm assured it's the best app there is.

Canva is also fun and allows you to easily transform a photo by adding words or graphics to it, creating your own "meme". I've used this a lot in the last month in creating content for the OMF FB page.

I don't have Buffer.com there, but it's on my laptop and I'm using it to schedule FB posts for OMF Japan. Another new website to add to my rapidly growing collection.

Yep, it's all related to social media. The workshop I went to in Manila was incredibly useful, introducing me to these apps (plus a lot more).

Then this week I've been challenged as I figured out how to distribute a video created for OMF Japan via social media (thankfully with a lot of help from our remote team via Workplace). 

Yesterday I added subtitles to a video for the first time using amara.org. Then I had to use handbrake.fr to apply the subtitles to the video. Figuring out how to upload the video to our OMF FB account (including allowing cross-posting to other OMF pages) and then to our blog have all been new challenges. Then it was discovered that there were mistakes in the subtitles and it had to be edited twice, which isn't an easy task when you need to make a completely new file as well as re-apply the subtitles to the video each time (thankfully a more tech-savvy member of our mobilisation team did it for me). But then the question: what do you do when the "faulty" video you've shared has already gone to a lot of people and you've got a new, better one to replace it?

I figure a few of you might not be fazed by this, but it was a challenge that made me feel quite like a techno dinosaur.

I wonder when it will settle down, or whether it just won't! This field is constantly changing and I suspect for as long as I'm doing this, I'll be playing catch-up.

I've learnt a lot and most of the time I'm glad I'm being challenged and stretched. It keeps me fresh and not-bored (the prospect of avoiding boredom drives me often). But sometimes I feel overwhelmed!

I am reassured by this article that one of these new apps sent me recently (maybe it was Buffer?). The article had a lot of good information, but this helpful paragraph at the end is reassuring:

If you take nothing else away from these eight lessons and case studies, do take away this: Find a social media strategy that works and stick to it. Evoke it through well-designed visuals, intentionally-written copy, and informed decision making, and you’ll be on your way to a storm of likes, comments, shares and results. From 8 social media lessons you can learn from the pros